CAPTCHA systems and methods

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for verifying human users through cognitive processes that computers cannot imitate are described herein. Human cognitive language processing techniques may be used to verify human users. Visual patterns and tests may be used to distinguish between humans and computers because computer-based visual recognition is fundamentally different from human visual processing. Persistent plugins and tests may be used to continuously verify human users.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claimis identified in the Application Data Sheet as filed with the presentapplication are hereby incorporated by reference under 37 CFR 1.57.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/289,767 filed Oct. 10, 2016 (U.S. Pat. No. 9,860,247 to be issuedJan. 2, 2018), which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/887,227 filed Oct. 19, 2015 (U.S. Pat. No. 9,467,436), which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/641,068 filed Mar.6, 2015 (U.S. Pat. No. 9,166,974), which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/147,253 filed Jan. 3, 2014 (U.S. Pat. No.8,978,121), which claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 61/749,185 filed Jan. 4, 2013, all of which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

This application is related to but does not claim priority from U.S.Pat. No. 6,895,236 entitled “Method for Verifying Geographical Locationof Wide Area Network Users” filed Aug. 23, 2001, which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and referred to herein as the“Location reference.”

BACKGROUND

In the area of computer-based platforms, reverse Turing tests may beused to tell humans and computers apart.

SUMMARY

The systems, methods, techniques, and devices described herein each haveseveral aspects, no single one of which is solely responsible for itsdesirable attributes. Without limiting the scope of this disclosure,several non-limiting features will now be discussed briefly.

In some embodiments, a computer system configured to validate languageCAPTCHAs comprises one or more hardware processors programmed viaexecutable code instructions. When executed, the executable codeinstructions may cause the computer system to implement a CAPTCHAgenerator. The CAPTCHA generator may be configured to determine a phraseof words. The CAPTCHA generator may further be configured to determineone or more spelling and/or grammatical errors to insert into respectivewords of the phrase. The CAPTCHA generator may further be configured togenerate a language CAPTCHA comprising the phrase of words including thedetermined one or more errors. The one or more errors may be configuredfor human perception of the phrase of words based on the languageCAPTCHA notwithstanding inclusion of the one or more errors in thelanguage CAPTCHA. When further executed, the executable codeinstructions may cause the computer system to implement a humanvalidator. The human validator may be configured to receive user inputdata associated with the language CAPTCHA. The human validator may befurther configured to compare the user input data to the phrase ofwords. The human validator may be further configured to determinewhether the user input data was provided by a human based on saidcomparison.

In some embodiments, a computer system configured to validate heteronymCAPTCHAs comprises one or more hardware processors programmed viaexecutable code instructions. When executed, the executable codeinstructions may cause the computer system to implement a CAPTCHAgenerator. The CAPTCHA generator may be configured to determine a phraseof words. The phrase of words when perceived together may comprise oneor more meanings associated with the phrase of words that assist humanperception of the phrase of words. The phrase of words may furthercomprise one or more heteronyms based on the one or more meaningsassociated with the phrase of words. The CAPTCHA generator may furtherbe configured to generate a heteronym CAPTCHA comprising the phrase ofwords including the one or more heteronyms. The one or more heteronymsmay be configured for human perception based on the one or more meaningsassociated with the phrase of words. When further executed, theexecutable code instructions may cause the computer system to implementa human validator. The human validator may be configured to receive userinput data associated with the heteronym CAPTCHA. The human validatormay be further configured to compare the user input data to two or moredefinitions corresponding to the one or more respective heteronyms. Thehuman validator may be further configured to determine whether the userinput data was provided by a human based on said comparison.

In some embodiments, a computer system configured to validate visualCAPTCHAs comprises one or more hardware processors programmed viaexecutable code instructions. When executed, the executable codeinstructions may cause the computer system to implement a CAPTCHAgenerator. The CAPTCHA generator may be configured to generate a visualCAPTCHA comprising a visual pattern configured to be perceived asincluding a first object and/or action by a human user viewing thevisual pattern. An automated computer system analyzing the visualpattern may not identify the first object and/or action. When furtherexecuted, the executable code instructions may cause the computer systemto implement a human validator. The human validator may be configured toreceive user input data associated with the visual CAPTCHA. The humanvalidator may be further configured to compare the user input data tothe first object and/or action. The human validator may be furtherconfigured to determine whether the user input data was provided by ahuman based on said comparison.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Certain aspects of the disclosure will become more readily appreciatedas those aspects become better understood by reference to the followingdetailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example CAPTCHA system,according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA, according to someembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2B illustrates a website comprising an example cognitive CAPTCHA,according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2C illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a writtenheteronym, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3A illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a moirépattern test, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a moirépattern, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3C illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising analternative moiré pattern test, according to some embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 3D illustrates example data comprising a moiré pattern of acognitive CAPTCHA, according to some embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 4A illustrates an example website comprising an example cognitiveCAPTCHA comprising a moiré pattern, according to some embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 4B illustrates an example website comprising an example cognitiveCAPTCHA after some time has elapsed, according to some embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 4C illustrates an example website comprising an example cognitiveCAPTCHA comprising a moiré pattern after further user interaction,according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5A illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a rorschachpattern, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5B illustrates an example cognitive reCAPTCHA comprising rorschachpatterns, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5C illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a visualpersistence pattern, according to some embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 5D illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a visualpersistence pattern after the elapse of some time, according to someembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example CAPTCHA system withwhich various methods and systems discussed herein may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reverse Turing tests may be used to tell humans and computers apart. Atype of reverse Turing test is the Completely Automated Public Turingtest to tell Computers and Humans Apart (“CAPTCHA”). CAPTCHA may be amechanism whereby a computer issues a test to elicit an answer from anend user that enables the computer to determine whether the end user isa human. For example, a CAPTCHA may display text as a graphic, which maybe partially obscured and/or distorted, and require the end user torespond with text characters. In another example, a CAPTCHA may displayknown and unknown graphic words simultaneously. If the end usersuccessfully identifies the known word, the end user's answer for theunknown word may be used by the CAPTCHA system to “solve” the unknownword. The technique for solving for unknown tests through end user inputwill be referred to herein as “reCAPTCHA.”

In addition to mechanisms designed to elicit and use one or more answersbased on partially obscured and/or distorted graphic text, disclosedherein are systems, methods, techniques, and devices for CAPTCHAs thattake advantage of various human cognitive processes that computerscannot accurately imitate. The terms “cognitive CAPTCHA” and/or“cognitive reCAPTCHA” will be used within the disclosure herein andfurther illustrated below to collectively refer to improved CAPTCHAs andreCAPTCHAs that exploit various human cognitive processes that computerscannot accurately imitate. Using the methods and systems disclosedherein, efficient, robust, scalable, and/or accurate test results may beachieved for distinguishing between humans and machines. While someexamples herein refer to the English language, the systems and methodsare applicable to humans that speak and/or understand other languages.

Example Cognitive CAPTCHAs

FIG. 1 illustrates a CAPTCHA system, according to some embodiments ofthe present disclosure. In the example embodiment of FIG. 1, the CAPTCHAenvironment 190 comprises a network 160 (including network 160A andnetwork 160B), a CAPTCHA system 100, a user computing device 102, and athird party web server 110. Various communications between these devicesare illustrated.

For example, the communication of a website request 112, a CAPTCHAplugin 114, a CAPTCHA request and/or data 116, user interaction data118, and a validation request and/or response 120 are illustrated invarious actions 1-5 that are illustrated in the circled numbers inFIG. 1. In this embodiment, the CAPTCHA system 100 includes a CAPTCHAgenerator 104, a CAPTCHA storage device 106, and a human validator 108,each of which is described in further detail below.

As shown in FIG. 1, at action one, the website request 112 istransmitted from the user computing device 102 to the third party webserver 110 through the network 160. The website requested may be anywebsite for which the operator/owner has implemented a CAPTCHAmechanism.

At action two, the third party web server 110 may transmit the CAPTCHAplugin 114 to the user computing device 102 through the network 160. TheCAPTCHA plugin 114 may be sent with website data, which may have been inresponse to the website request 112. In some embodiments, the CAPTCHAplugin 114 may comprise source code instructions, data, and/or markupinstructions, such as, but not limited to, JavaScript, XML, JSON,Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”), and/or some combination thereof Forexample, the CAPTCHA plugin 114, may be in a format such that webservers, similar to the third party web server 110, may embed theCAPTCHA plugin 114 in their websites and/or web applications withoutmajor alterations and/or modifications to their existing architectures.FIG. 2B illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA in a website. Thewebsite view 250 may correspond to the display of the website data withthe CAPTCHA plugin 114 by a web browser.

At action three, there may be transmission of the CAPTCHA request and/ordata 116 between the user computing device 102 and the CAPTCHA system100 and/or the CAPTCHA generator 104 through the network 160. FIG. 2Aillustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA. The loading and/or executionof the CAPTCHA plugin 114 of FIG. 1 by a web browser, application,and/or other device may result in the display of the cognitive CAPTCHA200 of FIG. 2A. Specifically, the loading and/or execution of theCAPTCHA plugin 114 may cause the user computing device 102 to transmitthe CAPTCHA request 116. As a result, data comprising the text 202 ofFIG. 2A, “We holld thee-se tru7ths to be slef-evidantt, that all men arecreSted evil, that they are endowned by there Crator with cretinunalienable Lefts, that among thease are Life, Library and the pursuitof Hapyness,” may be transmitted by the CAPTCHA system 100 and/or theCAPTCHA generator 104 in response to CAPTCHA request 116 of FIG. 1(either directly from the CAPTCHA system 100 to the user computingdivide 102, or from the CAPTCHA system 100 to the user computing device102 via the third party Web server 110). The data comprising the text202 of FIG. 2A may correspond to the CAPTCHA data 116 of FIG. 1. TheCAPTCHA generator 104 may retrieve the CAPTCHA data 116 from the CAPTCHAstorage device 106. At action four, the end user may interact with theCAPTCHA to transmit the user interaction data 118 to the third party webserver through the network 160. For example, the end user may interactwith the cognitive

CAPTCHA 200 of FIG. 2A. As illustrated in FIG. 2A, the end user mayinterpret and/or read the text 202. The end user may then follow theinstructions 204 to “[t]ype or speak the phrase with spelling and/orgrammar corrections.” For example, the end user may type the phrase intothe text box 206 and then click and/or press the submit button 210,which may cause the transmission of the user interaction data 118 ofFIG. 1. The end user may also press and/or click the microphone icon 208to speak the phrase into an input device of the user computing device,which may also cause the transmission of the user interaction data 118of FIG. 1. In some embodiments, the cognitive CAPTCHA 200 may comprise arefresh button 212, such that if an end user clicks and/or presses therefresh button, the text and/or content 202 refreshes and/or changes.The end user may refresh the content of a cognitive CAPTCHA because theend user may find the content too difficult to interpret, read,understand, and/or solve. After several attempts, which may beconfigurable, the end user may be prohibited from refreshing the CAPTCHAto prevent against robots, computing devices, and/or machines fromdetermining a correct answer to a cognitive CAPTCHA.

While some examples of cognitive CAPTCHAs in this disclosure may belimited to English, the techniques, systems, methods, and devicesdisclosed herein may be applicable to humans that speak languages otherthan English because human cognitive processing remains similar acrosslanguages, cultures, and/or nationalities. Furthermore, some examples ofthis disclosure may refer to one or more “humans,” and it may be assumedthat the human has limited to native proficiency with the Englishlanguage. Although, as previously mentioned, cognitive CAPTCHAs mayapply broadly to human cognitive abilities and is not limited to anylanguage. Furthermore, the term “human” as used within this disclosuremay refer to an animal, because the cognitive processing by a humanand/or animal differs from machine and/or computer processing.

The content of a cognitive CAPTCHA may distinguish between a human and amachine because human processing, interpretation, and/or perceptionoccurs differs from computer and/or machine data processing. Forexample, human processing, interpretation, and/or perception maysuccessfully understand words where the first and/or last letters are inthe correct place, regardless of the order of the other letters in aword. Additional cues, such as the presence of other words in asentence, the context of a word and/or sentence, semantics of the phraseand/or sentence when perceived together and/or as a whole, meaning ofthe words and/or sentence when perceived together and/or as a whole,word length, and/or any other human perception factors may further easehuman processing. The meaning of a phrase and/or sentence may assist insuccessfully understanding the phrase and/or sentence by a human whenthere are errors because the meaning of the words of the phrase and/orsentence together, combined, and/or as a whole has additional meaningbeyond the words individually. The content of a cognitive CAPTCHA maycomprise the sentence, wholly or partially: “Four sorce and sveen yearsago our faethrs bruohgt frtoh on this cotninent, a new naiton, cncievoedin Lrebirty, and ddeitaced to the prpsooitoin that all men are ceraetdeuqal.” Due to human cognitive processing, most humans may be able toread the correct spelling of the words standing alone from the precedingquoted sentence. Furthermore, most humans may be able to read the wordswhen placed in a phrase and/or sentence. For example, the above quotedsentence corresponds to the beginning of the Gettysburg Address, whichmay be a speech that many humans are familiar with. Thus, the meaning ofthe words from the Gettysburg Address together and/or combined hasmeaning beyond the individual words themselves that may assist in humaninterpretation and/or perception of the words. However, machines and/orcomputers may not possess knowledge in the same way that a humanunderstands and/or has knowledge about the Gettysburg address and/orAmerican history generally. Therefore, the human cognitive processingwhich may occur by a human to interpret misspelled words alone or in asentence with context may be difficult for a machine to process and/orinterpret.

The content 202 of the cognitive CAPTCHA 200 illustrates other aspectsof human cognitive processing that may distinguish humans from machines.Human processing may be able to compensate for additional, missing,and/or substituted letters or symbols. For example, content 202 maycomprise the text: “We holld thee-se tru7ths to be slef-evidantt, thatall men are creSted evil, that they are endowned by there Crator withcretin unalienable Lefts.” While the correct spelling may be “We holdthese truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, thatthey are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,”similar to the human cognitive processing that was able to process wordsand/or sentences with misplaced letters, human cognitive processing maybe able to correctly interpret the words and/or phrase from the content202. Similar to the difficulty a machine may have in interpreting themisplaced letters of words whether in a sentence or alone, it may bedifficult for a machine to interpret content 202. Therefore, theaddition, lack of, and/or substituted letters or symbols, may be used aspart of a cognitive CAPTCHA test to distinguish between humans andmachines.

In some embodiments, the cognitive CAPTCHA and/or the CAPTCHA system maybe deployed in a manner that reduces the effectiveness of systems anddevices designed to distribute CAPTCHA problems to outsourced CAPTCHAsolving centers. For example, an automated data scraping system mayencounter a CAPTCHA, do a screen capture, send the CAPTCHA to the screenof a worker in a center located in Brazil, and resume data scrapingafter the human in Brazil has solved the CAPTCHA. In some embodiments,by tying the cognitive CAPTCHA to linguistic, cultural, regional, and/orother characteristics of the intended end users of the CAPTCHA system,automated mechanisms that incorporate distributed human CAPTCHA solvingare rendered ineffective or less effective. Taking the example further,if the automated data scraping system were attacking a site housingarchives of California newspapers written in English, setting theCAPTCHAs to include a strong bias in favor of high-competence Englishspeakers and/or those with cultural/historical knowledge of Californiaand/or the United States would strongly limit the options foroutsourcing of human CAPTCHA cracking. The examples illustrated hereinalso contemplate the countermeasures taken by a system against such abias, for example, evaluating the language and/or cultural/historicalbias of the CAPTCHAs and sending them for solution to persons withappropriate skills and/or background.

In some embodiments, homonyms and/or homophones may be used for thecontent of a cognitive CAPTCHA. For example, the text content 202includes the word “there” 230, which is a homonym for the correct word“their” in that phrase's context. In another example, the content maycomprise the text, “he came at me with an acts,” and the CAPTCHA testmay ask the end user to correctly spell the phrase and/or sentence.“Acts” and “axe” are homonyms. Therefore, a human end user may be ableto determine the correct answer and/or replace “acts” with “axe” becausethe words sound similar, which may be difficult for a machine todetermine. In some embodiments, the end user may be asked to identifythe incorrect homonym and/or homophone within a phrase and/or sentence.For example, the text may comprise, “the pair tasted sweet going pasthis pallet,” where “pair” (instead of “pear”) and “pallet” (instead of“palate”) were incorrect, whereas “past,” which has the homophone“passed,” was correct). Such distinctions may be difficult to identifyprogrammatically, whereas human cognition may be able to identify theincorrect homonyms and/or homophones.

Certain techniques may be used to reduce human failures of cognitiveCAPTCHAs, e.g., situations where humans fail a CAPTCHA test. Forexample, the greater the deviation from the correct presentation, thehigher the likelihood that a human end user will unsuccessfully answerthe CAPTCHA. Most humans may easily identify the term “Persident Obama,”“Persident Omaba” may be more difficult, and “Psdneiert Om baa” may bestill more difficult. Finally, misplacing the first and last letters,such as, “Dnpretsei Aaomb,” may be too difficult for most humans toidentify. Thus, to prevent human failures, certain structural and/orplacements of letters should be avoided. For example, retaining soundgroups and/or phonemes (such as “sh” or “ion”) in words may preventhuman failures. Keeping letters close to their correct positions inwords may also be useful to prevent human failures. To further preventhuman failures, where additional letters and/or symbols are added,additional letters and/or symbols should be similar to the correctletters and/or symbols, and additional letters and/or symbols should notintroduce a substantial additional element such as an extra syllable.For example, “holld” may be correctly spelled by a human because theextra “1” may not add an extra syllable to the world. In anotherexample, “cr3ated” may be correctly interpreted by a human because the“3” resembles an “E” as interpreted and/or perceived by a human.However, by placing a word in context, it may be possible to alter theword in such a way that a false positive would be unlikely. For example,take the following sentence: “The most populous state is Cilfla77inor,located just south of Oregon.” A human may correctly read and/orinterpret the word “California” based on knowledge of California beingthe most populous state and/or located south of Oregon. Similarly, oneor more completely wrong words may be substituted, relying entirely oncontext to make the correction, as in “Thomas Edison held many patents,but is probably best known for inviting the light dlod.” In someembodiments, the difficulty of the phrase and/or word poses for humancognition may be manipulated by any one or a combination of thesemethods.

In some embodiments, audio cognitive CAPTCHAs may be used to distinguishbetween humans and machines. Audio cognitive CAPTCHAs may be desirablein some cases, such as, but not limited to, compliance with theAmericans with Disabilities Act. Some of the techniques, systems, and/ormethods in this disclosure, such as, but not limited to, substitution ofan incorrect and/or misspelled word into a phrase, may be implemented asan audio cognitive CAPTCHA. An audio cognitive CAPTCHA and/or an audiocomponent of a cognitive CAPTCHA may comprise a test where audio isplayed to an end user and the end user may type and/or speak the answer.For example, as illustrated in FIG. 2A, an end user may press and/orclick the audio button 214 to be administered an audio test. The audiotest may comprise audio playback and/or a recording of the text content202 or other words and/or phrases.

In some embodiments, the end user may be asked to read and/or speak oneor more words that may be a mispronunciation of a test word. Forexample, the cognitive CAPTCHA content may comprise the words “PhilLying” (in text and/or audio) and the correct end user answer may be“filing” (where “Phil Lying” may be a mispronunciation of “filing”).Similarly, words with repeating adjacent sounds may together indicate atest word with the adjacent sounds reduced to a single sound, as in“Star Artling” corresponding to “startling” or “faux owning”corresponding to “phoning.” In the “Star Artling” example, the end ofthe word “star” may be the same sound as beginning of the word“artling,” and a human may be able to answer the test word “startling”from hearing and/or reading “Star Artling.”

In some embodiments, data for use in the CAPTCHA system may be gatheredby harvesting, monitoring, or otherwise using corrections tocomputerized transcriptions of audio data. For example, a user of the“Siri” function on the iPhone may state “Do you need me to pick up Ben,Anna, and the baby on the way home?” However, the audio to text servicethat converts the spoken words to text may transcribe it as “Do you needme to pick up banana and the baby on the way home?” The user would thenmanually correct “banana” to “Ben, Anna.” In some embodiments, the dataassociated with the manual correction could be used as a source for acognitive CAPTCHA, similar to the “Star Artling” example above.

In some embodiments, the end user may be asked to read and/or speak oneor more words (which may comprise a nonsensical phrase and/or sentence),but when read together sound like another word or phrase with analternative reading. For example, the cognitive CAPTCHA content maycomprise the words “easel aid ease man” and the correct answer may be“he's a lady's man” because the test content when read aloud and/orsilently by a human end user may phonetically sound like and/or besimilar to the test answer when interpreted by a human end user. Inanother example, the test content may be “know sayer” and the testanswer may be “nose hair.” A machine and/or computer, even with aphonetic dictionary, may find it very difficult to find the associationsbetween the unrelated words and/or phrases based on phonetic sounds. Insome embodiments, one or more photographic and/or artistic images,whether rendered accurately, distorted, or otherwise, may be presentedto aid the human in understanding the problem presented by the CAPTCHA.For example, in the “know sayer” example, a drawing with two dots at thetop, an inverted triangle in the center of the middle and the bottomhalf of a circle at the bottom, with a slight line coming out of onepart of the triangle, may be enough to prevent a false negative and/orhuman failure of the cognitive CAPTCHA (by providing the human with acrude image of a face with an artifact near the nose).

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs may comprise heteronyms. Aheteronym is one of two or more words that have the same spellings butdifferent meanings and pronunciations. In some embodiments, the end usermay be asked to identify the incorrectly pronounced word or words. Forexample, an audio phrase may be “You polish the record,” where “polish”is pronounced as if referencing the country Poland, and/or “record” ispronounced as if referencing writing something down. In another example,the audio phrase may be “please write about an interesting object,”where “object” is pronounced as if referencing somebody with anobjection to a policy. A human may be able to identify each of theincorrectly pronounced words, while a computer and/or machine would beunlikely to succeed at the same task. In some embodiments, it may bedesirable to include words with heteronyms, but to pronounce those wordscorrectly so as to frustrate attempts to defeat the CAPTCHA by a machinewith a dictionary of heteronyms. In some embodiments, written heteronymsmay be used. For example, a person may be asked to identify the correctmeaning of each heteronym. FIG. 2C illustrates an example cognitiveCAPTCHA comprising a written heteronym. The cognitive CAPTCHA comprisestext 250, “[p]lease write about an interesting object.” The end usermust choose between definition A 252, “to disagree with something oroppose something,” and definition B 254, “a thing that you can see andtouch.” A human may select the correct choice, definition B 254, fromunderstanding the context of the sentence, but it may be difficult for acomputer and/or machine to select definition B 254.

Returning to FIG. 1, at action five the third party web server 110 maytransmit a validation request 116 to the CAPTCHA system 100 and/or thehuman validator 108 through the network 160. The validation request 116may comprise some or all of the user interaction data 118. Furthermore,the validation request 116 may comprise the answer and/or response fromthe end user based on the cognitive CAPTCHA test, a test identifier, thecontent of the cognitive CAPTCHA, such as the text content 202 of FIG.2A, and/or an identifier for the content. The human validator 108 maythen load the correct answer from the CAPTCHA storage device 106 andcompare it to the answer and/or response from the end user. The humanvalidator 108 may then send the validation response 116 to the thirdparty web server 110 through the network 160 indicating whether the enduser passed or failed the cognitive CAPTCHA test. The third party webserver 110 may then use the validation response 116, e.g., to permissionthe end user for some activity and/or allow the end user to access somecontent. In some embodiments, the user interaction data 118 is sentdirectly to the CAPTCHA system 100 rather than via the third party webserver 110, in this embodiment, a validation response (e.g. confirmingthat the user provided the correct interaction data for the CAPTCHA) maybe provided to the third party web server 110 after the human validator108 of the CAPTCHA system processes the user interaction data 118received directly from the user computing device 102.

In some embodiments, it may be desirable for determination and/or anycomputation based on the end user answer and/or response to occur in theCAPTCHA system 100 instead of the user computing device 102. Forexample, if validation occurred through JavaScript that may be executedon the user computing device 102, a machine and/or computer may able toautomatically inspect, decompile, and/or analyze the JavaScript sourcecode to determine the correct answer, and, therefore, could defeat thecognitive CAPTCHA.

Example Moire CAPTCHAs

In some embodiments, moiré patterns may be used, alone or in combinationwith the techniques, methods, and/or systems disclosed herein, ascognitive CAPTCHAs. A moiré pattern may be a visual pattern. Forexample, two identical patterns may be overlayed and/or superimposed tocreate a moiré pattern. In some examples, two patterns may be displacedand/or rotated a small amount from one another to create a moirépattern. In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs with moiré patterns mayallow the end user to control one or more characteristics and/orfeatures of the grids, patterns, and/or interactions between the gridsand/or patterns.

FIG. 3A illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a moirépattern test. The cognitive CAPTCHA 300 may comprise an instruction 330,a first circle pattern 302, a second circle pattern 304, a patternadjuster 305, a submit button 310, and a refresh button 312. The enduser may be prompted with instruction 330 to “[a]djust the circles tomake an eye.” First circle pattern 302 may comprise twenty circles withthe same origin, but with uniformly increasing radiuses. Second circlepattern 304 may be identical or similar to first circle pattern 302, butwith a different vertical and/or horizontal coordinate for its origin.Differences between the two circles (e.g., number of rings, size ofrings, coloring, etc.) may be implemented in other embodiments in orderto cause the desired Moire effect when the circles are properlyoverlapped. Additionally, any other shapes may be used in such amoiré-based CAPTCHA.

As illustrated by FIG. 3A, there may initially be no overlap betweenfirst circle pattern 302 and second circle pattern 304. The end user mayselect, touch, and/or press the dial 306 of the pattern adjuster 305 (ordrag-and-drop the circles themselves in one embodiment). Dial 306 may beadjusted and/or its location may be moved as illustrated by arrow 307,which may adjust the proximity and/or location of the first circlepattern 302 and/or the second circle pattern 304.

FIG. 3B, illustrates cognitive CAPTCHA 300 after end user interaction.For example, the ender user may have interacted with the patternadjuster 305, by adjusting and/or moving the dial 306 to a new position.As a result, the proximity and/or location of the first circle pattern302 and/or the second circle pattern 304 may have changed. A moirépattern may have been created from the overlap of first circle pattern302 and second circle pattern 304. For example, the overlap betweenfirst circle pattern 302 and the second circle pattern 304 may havecreated a visual pattern with a dark and/or solid oval center and/or agrid and/or dotted surrounding pattern. The moiré pattern from theoverlap of first circle pattern 302 and second circle pattern 304 mayappear to be an “eye” as perceived and/or interpreted by a human. As aresult, a human end user may click and/or press the submit button 310because the human end user perceived and/or interpreted the visualpattern to be an “eye.” If the end user selects positions of the firstcircle pattern 302 and the second circle pattern 304 within a specifiedrange of overlap then the CAPTCHA system may authenticate and/orvalidate the end user as a human.

Example cognitive CAPTCHA 300 comprising a moiré pattern test maydistinguish between human and machine end users for several reasons. Thefollowing reasons are illustrative and there may be additional reasonswhy the cognitive CAPTCHA 300 is successful. For example, it maydifficult for a computer and/or machine to interpret and/or analyze amoiré pattern similar to how a human may interpret a moiré patternthrough cognitive processing. It may be difficult to mathematicallyand/or programmatically correlate a moiré pattern to visualrepresentations of objects and/or things, whereas such correlations mayimmediately occur to humans due to cognitive processing. Furthermore, itmay be difficult to program and/or instruct a machine to interact withthe user interface of a cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a moiré patterntest. For example, the pattern adjuster 305 of cognitive CAPTCHA 300 maybe difficult to be interacted with by a machine and/or computer.Therefore, cognitive CAPTCHA 300 comprising a moiré pattern test may besuccessful at distinguishing between humans and machines.

In some embodiments, similar to the refresh button 212 of FIG. 2A, therefresh button 312 of cognitive CAPTCHA 300 of FIG. 3A may change and/oralter content of the cognitive CAPTCHA. For example, by clicking and/orpressing the refresh button 312, the visual patterns displayed and/orthe instruction 330 may change and/or alter.

FIG. 3C illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising analternative moiré pattern test. The instruction 330 of FIG. 3C mayinstruct the end user to “[a]djust the circles to make stripes” or“[a]djust the circles to make an asterisk-like shape in the overlappingarea.” The instruction 330 of FIG. 3A and FIG. 3C may have changed froman end user clicking and/or pressing the refresh button 312 of FIG. 3A.Similar to the end user interaction illustrated by FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B,the end user may adjust the pattern adjuster 305. As a result, a moirépattern may have been created from the overlap of first circle pattern302 and second circle pattern 304 of FIG. 3C. For example, the overlapbetween first circle pattern 302 and the second circle pattern 304 mayhave created a visual pattern, such as stripes as interpreted and/orviewed by a human end user.

In some embodiments, there may be some variations of the moiré patternsof cognitive CAPTCHAs. Moire patterns may not be limited to circlepatterns. For example, moiré patterns may comprise boxes, rectangles,lines, and all variations of shapes, figures, and/or lines. Moirepatterns may comprise variations of colors and not just black and/orwhite. In some embodiments, there may be variations of the availableuser interactions with cognitive CAPTCHAs comprising moiré patterns. Forexample, the width of the lines, the number of lines, the speed and/ordirection of rotation of the shapes and/or patterns, size of the shapesand/or patterns, relative position of the shapes and/or patterns, and/orcolors of the lines, shapes, and/or patterns may all or in somecombination thereof be modifiable by the end user to create moirépatterns. In some embodiments, alteration and/or modifications to themoiré patterns may be accomplished by moving, dragging, and/or droppingshapes and/or patterns through mouse input and/or touch input. Forexample, change of the relative position of first circle pattern 302 andsecond circle pattern 304 of cognitive CAPTCHA 300 in FIG. 3A may occurby touch screen dragging and dropping of first circle pattern 302 and/orsecond circle pattern 304. Furthermore, alteration and/or change of theposition of the shapes and/or patterns may not be limited to horizontalmovement. For example, the height and/or Y position of one or more ofthe shapes and/or patterns may be altered and/or changed.

In some embodiments, the cognitive CAPTCHA 300 of FIG. 3A may correspondto the CAPTCHA plugin 114 and/or the loading and/or execution of theCAPTCHA plugin 114 of FIG. 1.

Moire patterns of cognitive CAPTCHAs may be in various formats. Moirepatterns may comprise formats such as source code and/or codeinstructions, graphic files, vector image formats such as the scalablevector graphic (“SVG”) format, a database format, files, ExtensibleMarkup Language (“XML”), JavaScript Object Notation (“JSON”), a fileformat that is proprietary to the CAPTCHA system, any other formatand/or some combination thereof.

FIG. 3D illustrates example data comprising a moiré pattern of acognitive CAPTCHA. Moire data 370 may correspond to the first circlepattern 302 and/or second circle pattern 304 of FIG. 3A. Moire data 370illustrates an example XML and/or SVG format used to create the moirépatterns in FIG. 3B and FIG. 3C. The tags and/or elements of moiré data370 are illustrative and, thus, may not be syntactically complete and/orcorrect. Moire data 370 may comprise twenty “<circle . . . >” elements.Each circle element may be initially positioned at the coordinate “x=‘O’y=‘O’,” but may have increasing radiuses. For example, the radius of thecircle element with identity “circle!” may comprise a radius of “0.065,”the radius of the circle element with identity “circle2” may comprise aradius of “0.165,” and so on in an increasing series until the circleelement with identity “circle20” may comprise a radius of “1.965.” Moiredata 370 may correspond to one circle pattern and may be duplicatedand/or repeated to correspond to one or more additional circle patterns.

In some embodiments, the pattern data, such as example moiré data 370,may be combined with other techniques and/or methods to create acognitive CAPTCHA and/or moiré pattern. For example, moiré data 370 maybe transformed and/or translated by changing the coordinates of theorigin and/or the X and/or Y coordinates. Pattern data, such as examplemoiré data 370 may be combined with source code and/or code instructionsto manipulate and/or transform the pattern and/or shape data. Thepattern data, following end user interaction, may be transmitted alongwith other data to validate and/or authenticate a human end user.

Where a dynamic image and/or pattern caused by code instructions and/orpattern data is not desirable, a series of static images may bepresented to the end user to determine image selection based on moiréqualities. For example, the various images of the circle patterns fromFIGS. 3A, 3B, and/or 3C may be displayed to the end user and the enduser may be asked to identify the image corresponding to an “eye” or“stripes.”

In some embodiments, formulas may be used to represent and/orcharacterize moiré patterns. For example, a shape moiré and/or bandmoiré may comprise a revealing layer comprising black lines withtransparent lines and a base layer comprising periodically repeatingshapes. When the revealing layer is overlayed and/or superimposed overthe base layer, the repeating pattern in the base layer is stretchedand/or runs along the vertical axis. Furthermore, the shapes and/orpatterns that are created are magnified versions of the repeatingpattern. In some embodiments, a band moiré pattern may be represented bythe following formula:

$P_{rn} = \frac{P_{h} + P_{r}}{P_{h} - P_{r}}$

Ph may denote and/or indicate the period of shapes in the base layer. Prmay denote and/or indicate the period of transparent lines in therevealing layer. Prn may denote and/or indicate the size of the opticalshapes magnified along the vertical axis and/or the period of the moiréshapes and/or lines.

An example of the formula may be the following. For example, both thebase layer and the revealing layer may comprise repeating parallellines. The period of the base layer, Ph, i.e., the space between theparallel lines, may be thirteen. The period of the revealing layer, Pr,may be twelve. The period of moiré lines, Prn, may be one hundred andfifty six. Thus, various moiré patterns may be generated by altering theinput numbers Ph and Pr.

In some embodiments, similar to any computation and/or validation thatmay be desirable to occur in the CAPTCHA system, it may be desirable forsome or all of the code instructions that may transform the content of acognitive CAPTCHA to occur in the CAPTCHA system. For example, some ofthe user interaction data may be transmitted to the CAPTCHA system andthe CAPTCHA system may stream the content, such as the image and/oraudio, to the end user computing device.

In some embodiments, there may be some variations of cognitive CAPTCHAscomprising moiré patterns to prevent scaling. Moire patterns and/oreffects may be affected and/or impacted by changes to device screenresolutions and/or upscaling or downsizing of images. In someembodiments, code instructions may be used to prevent rescaling. Forexample, there may be HTML markup instructions instructing the webbrowser and/or viewing device not to scale. In some embodiments, the enduser may be informed that scaling may prevent a proper cognitive CAPTCHAtest. In some embodiments, the cognitive CAPTCHA may determine theavailable space in the end user's screen and/or display and generates apattern that does not require scaling. In some embodiments, the CAPTCHAsystem may alter the pattern data and/or pattern based on the end usercomputing device and/or may validate and/or authorize the end user basedon end user computing device's particular configuration and/or settings.For example, display type and size may be determined through HTTPheaders, local variables, and/or other methods.

Example Moire CAPTCHA—Website Implementation

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs comprising moiré patterns may beimplemented in websites. FIG. 4A illustrates an example cognitiveCAPTCHA implementation. The cognitive CAPTCHA 400 may comprise aninstruction 410, a first circle pattern 402, a second circle pattern404, and a pattern adjuster 405. The components of CAPTCHA 400 maycomprise similar functionality to the components of cognitive CAPTCHA300 of FIG. 3A. For example, the pattern adjuster 405 may adjust therelative positions of the first circle pattern 402 and/or the secondcircle pattern 404. An end user, upon visiting the example website 450through a web browser may interpret and/or read the instruction 410 to“[m]aintain an eye, otherwise you will be logged out in 60 seconds.” Thecognitive CAPTCHA 400 may remain visible throughout a session at thewebsite 450 and/or be brought back to visibility at some point within asession. As time passes and/or in response to other events, the settingsof the cognitive CAPTCHA 400 may be altered and/or appear to drift fromthe end user's selected settings. For example, as illustrated by FIG.4B, the cognitive CAPTCHA 400 may have altered and/or changed after theelapse of time. The relative positions of first circle pattern 402and/or a second circle pattern 404 may have drifted to their respectivecurrent positions of no overlap as illustrated by FIG. 4B. Furthermore,instruction 410 may have changed to comprise the text of “59 secondsremaining to make an eye . . . ” to indicate to the end user that alogout will occur if further user interaction is not taken. For example,FIG. 4C may illustrate the cognitive CAPTCHA 400 after further end userinteraction. For example, to avoid from being logged out, the end usermay have interacted with the pattern adjuster 405 to adjust the relativepositions of the first circle pattern 402 and/or the second circlepattern 403 to within a range and/or threshold to validate and/orauthenticate a human end user.

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHA 400 may fade in and/or out.

For example, once the cognitive CAPTCHA 400 is reset, the CAPTCHA 400may fade out because user interaction is not necessary. However, as thelogout period gets closer, the cognitive CAPTCHA 400 may fade in, becomemore prominent, bolder, and/or highlighted to indicate to the end userthat further interaction may be necessary.

In some embodiments, the patterns and/or tests of the cognitive

CAPTCHA 400 may change over time. For example, the instruction 410 maychange from requiring making an “eye” to “stripes.” In some embodiments,the patterns themselves may change from circles to squares and/or othershapes over time.

There may be several advantages to persistent cognitive CAPTCHAs asillustrated by FIG. 4. For example, authentication and/orreauthentication mechanisms may often annoy end users because suchmechanisms completely interrupt the end user's session and/orexperience. In the example cognitive CAPTCHA 400, a user may adjust thesettings as needed during breaks of website activity and/or otherperiods when it is less intrusive. The use of persistent and/or driftingcognitive CAPTCHAs is not limited to moiré patterns as shown in

FIG. 4, but rather may be used with any other CAPTCHAs and/or systems,methods, and/or techniques disclosed herein. Additional advantages ofpersistent cognitive CAPTCHAs may include thwarting outsourcing ofCAPTCHA “solving.” For example, teams of human end users, such ashundreds or thousands of people, may be employed to solve and/orcomplete CAPTCHAs to provide the answers to automated computer systemsto bypass human validation systems in the future. However, if systemsand/or websites employ persistent CAPTCHAs, it may be very difficult orimpossible to design computer systems to continuously interact withpersistent cognitive CAPTCHAs. Furthermore, it may be prohibitivelyexpensive and/or economically infeasible to employee human operators toremain logged into websites and/or systems that comprise persistentcognitive CAPTCHAs. Therefore, persistent cognitive CAPTCHAs may furtherpromote distinguishing between humans and machines and discourage theoutsourcing of solving CAPTCHAs.

Example Pattern CAPTCHAs

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs may comprise various visualpatterns. Another aspect of the difference between human perception andinterpretation by computers is that human cognitive processing mayeasily identify and/or infer patterns within objects and/or images. Forexample, a human looking at clouds in the sky or pictures of clouds maysee an elephant, a car, or a person. On the other hand, a computerpresented with a variety of photographs of clouds would find itdifficult to identify which of the clouds a human would perceive as anobject, such as an elephant. Another example of finding representationsof objects within an unrelated image may include inkblot and/orrorschach patterns.

FIG. 5A illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHA comprising a rorschachpattern. The user interface of cognitive CAPTCHA 500 may comprise asubmit button 510, and a refresh button 512, an audio button 514, amicrophone 508, and a text box 506, which may behave similarly to theuser interface of cognitive CAPTCHA 200 of FIG. 2. Cognitive CAPTCHA 500may comprise pattern 502 that may be a digital inkblot and/or rorschachpattern. A feature of pattern 502 may be that the pattern issymmetrical. Pattern 502 may have been automatically and/or randomlygenerated by a system such as the CAPTCHA system. Instructions 504,“[w]hat do you see,” may prompt the end user to type and/or respond withan object and/or idea that the human end user associates with thepattern 502. For example, human end users may perceive, interpret,and/or see a “person” by looking at pattern 502 because the inkblotappears to have a head, body, arms, and/or legs, which comprise a humanand/or person drawing.

Cognitive CAPTCHAs may comprise audio and/or recordings that elicitunrelated identifications and/or pattern recognitions. For example, ifthe end user presses and or clicks the audio button 514, the end usermay be played randomly generated audio noises and/or sounds to elicitidentification with objects and/or things, such as an association withthe “ocean” because a human end user may interpret the sounds as soundsof the ocean.

ReCAPTCHAs may be applied visual, moiré, audio, and/or other types ofpatterns. FIG. 5B illustrates an example cognitive reCAPTCHA comprisingrorschach patterns. Cognitive reCAPTCHA 520 may comprise pattern 502 andpattern 530. For example, pattern 502 may be a known and/or solvedpattern where the correct human validation answer is “person.” However,the pattern 530 (which may have been randomly and/or automaticallygenerated by the CAPTCHA system) may be an unknown and/or unsolved. Inother words, there may be no known association with what the pattern 530looks like when perceived by humans. For example, humans may interpretand/or perceive pattern 530 as a hat with eye and/or a car. Therefore,when end users submit answers through the cognitive reCAPTCHA 520, ifthe answer to pattern 502 is correct, then the CAPTCHA may store and/oruse the second answer to the pattern 530 (such as “hat” or “car”). As aresult, the CAPTCHA system may collect answers to unknown visual, audio,and/or other types of patterns, which may be randomly and/orautomatically generated. In some embodiments, the first answer to avalidated unknown pattern will be saved and/or stored as the answer tothat pattern. In some embodiments, an unknown pattern will be “solved”when the number of answers for that unknown pattern surpasses a givenand/or configurable threshold.

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs comprising visualrepresentations may be asymmetric, such as, but not limited to, imagesand/or representations of clouds.

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs may comprise visual and/or audiovibrations. Regarding visual vibrations, a result of the biologicalproperties of the human eye and/or human brain is that humans mayperceive an image as changing and/or moving when the image may bevibrating. For example, a three dimensional image may be generated fromvibrating and/or oscillating the image. It may be difficult to programcode instructions of a computer and/or machine to mimic human perceptionto recognize patterns and/or movements from visual vibrations. In asimilar manner, interference between sound waves and/or filtering ofsound waves may also be used in cognitive CAPTCHAs. A voice and/or othersignal may be embedded within a sound that contains other, maskingsounds. In some embodiments, a human voice recording may be isolated ata frequency and/or frequency range (such as using an auto-tuner) andmasking sounds may be kept out of that frequency range in whole or inpart. For example, a human voice recording may be auto-tuned to twokilohertz and/or masking noises introduced at higher volumes and/orfrequencies at other portions of the range, but at a volume and/orfrequency over which a human voice can be heard at two kilohertz. Theend user would then be prompted to use an equalizer function to reduceand/or eliminate noises at other ranges, which may move and/or shift therange until the end users identifies the voice. In some embodiments, theend user may be asked to identify the end users' own voice in a range ofvoices and/or noise recordings.

In some embodiments, the phenomenon of human visual persistence may beused to create or enhance CAPTCHAs. Indeed, in this manner, a CAPTCHAcould be presented in an output window, such as, but not limited to, acommand line window. For example, a program may generate a random orsemi-random stream of character lines (for example, ten or fortycharacter lines). FIG. 5C illustrates an example cognitive CAPTCHAcomprising a visual persistence pattern. Cognitive CAPTCHA 550 comprisesan output window 562 with text output 564. The text output 564 may berandom and/or semi-random. FIG. 5D illustrates the text output 564 afterthe elapse of time. In the example, the cognitive CAPTCHA 550 may streamnew lines of characters to create the visual pattern of waves asperceived by a human end user. For example, the lines of text may scrollup the screen as new lines of text are added at the bottom (or scrollingin the opposite direction in some embodiments) to illustrate some objector movement that isn't obvious in a single snapshot of the output window562. The correct answer to cognitive CAPTCHA 550 may be “waves” and/or“waving.” It may be difficult for a machine to recognize such a pattern.In some embodiments, the end user may be provided several multiplechoice answers to select from.

In some embodiments, a cognitive CAPTCHA with an output window mayrearrange the lines by swapping one or more characters in a manner thatcreates a pattern as multiple lines scroll past. In one aspect, thiscould be done by having the character “l” or the number one (“1”) or theexclamation point (which are all similar in that they are verticallines) move between positions as the lines go past, following a patternsuch as “move to the right, wait a short time, move to the right twicemore with an even shorter delay, then slowly move back left.” Forexample, the pattern of “move to the right, wait a short time, move tothe right twice more with an even shorter delay, then slowly move backleft,” may be one of several multiple choice answers for the end user toselect from. A human may identify the pattern (e.g., the movement of aparticular character or group of characters), whereas a machine wouldhave difficulty doing so. Such difficulty may be increased if differentcharacters are used, such as, but not limited to, a blank space,characters with primarily horizontal lines, characters with two verticallines, etc. In some embodiments, the character need not be present onevery line, so the composition of the line characters in the aggregatecan be random, although the rearrangement would not be.

In some embodiments, visual persistence may be used to create patternsin flowing artwork and/or graphics. For example, many music“visualizers” create graphical patterns that move in conjunction withchanges to ambient sound. Such changes, with or without the sound,present patterns easily noticed by a human but far more difficult toidentify for a computer. In some embodiments, the end user may be askedto speak in a certain pattern to create a specified effect in avisualize as part of a CAPTCHA (e.g., “make the visualizer bump in amanner similar to the beat of the chorus of Queen's ‘We Will RockYou’”).

In some embodiments, cognitive CAPTCHAs may comprise animations and/orrequest the end user to identify actions and/or verbs (e.g., rather thanthe actual objects in the images). For example, using the output windowand/or command line techniques illustrated above, the cognitive CAPTCHAmay display a text-based stick figure walking and/or a horse galloping.Thus, the correct answer to the example cognitive CAPTCHA may be anaction word and/or verb, such as, but not limited to, “walking,”“running,” “galloping,” etc. In some embodiments, the cognitive CAPTCHAsmay comprise animation formats and/or techniques, such as, but notlimited to, Graphic Interchange Format (“GIF”), Flash, SVG, XML,JavaScript, AJAX, and/or some combination thereof Unlike human endusers, it may be difficult for computers and/or machines to identifyactions because some computers and/or machines may be programmed forobject and/or image recognition. Cognitive CAPTCHAs comprisinganimations and/or verb tests may be combined, in part or whole, withother methods, systems, and/or techniques described in this disclosure.

In some embodiments, patterns may be generated through printed patterns,patterns on digital methods, and/or other methods of displaying contentother than through computing systems. In some embodiments, content maybe encrypted through the systems, methods, devices, and/or techniquesdisclosed herein. In some embodiments, the systems, methods, devices,and/or techniques disclosed herein related to cognitive CAPTCHAs may beused as passwords and/or components of passwords. For example, an enduser may adjust a moiré pattern to a certain level and/or threshold,such as the moiré patterns illustrated in FIG. 3B and/or FIG. 3C, tovalidate and/or authorize the end user. In some embodiments, the circlemoiré patterns may visually recognize the look and/or feel of acombination lock.

Example CAPTCHA Delivery Methods

In some embodiments, the delivery and/or transmission of the CAPTCHA maybe varied to verify and/or validate a human end user. The systems,methods, devices, and/or techniques disclosed in the Location referencemay be used with CAPTCHAs. For example, a CAPTCHA may be sent by textmessage and/or email to an end user's mobile device according to thesystems, methods, devices, and/or techniques disclosed in the Locationreference and/or otherwise. In some embodiments, the CAPTCHA may be sentonly to a particular network, which may frustrate the outsourcing ofCAPTCHA breakers to teams of humans who may be located outside of theparticular network. In some embodiments, the CAPTCHA may only acceptanswers sent from a particular location and/or locale, which may alsoprevent the outsourcing situation. In some embodiments, cognitiveCAPTCHAs may be prohibited from being displayed on mobile devices and/orparticular mobile devices to guarantee proper display of the cognitiveCAPTCHA.

Example Search Engine Capture Management

In some embodiments, the systems, methods, devices, and/or techniquesdisclosed herein may be used for search engine capture management. Apersistent problem for web publishers, such as, but not limited to,Twitter posters, blog writers and/or bloggers, and/or articlepublishers, is that web publishers may be unable to manage how searchengines, web crawlers, and/or other web services digitally us and readtheir content. For example, an article regarding breast cancer ispublished and/or posted to the Internet, the article may be indexed by asearch engine and/or returned by search engines for searches ofpornography. Furthermore, pornographic advertisements may appear inproximity to the article when displayed in search results. There may bea convention for search engines and/or other web services to read therobots.txt file and/or refuse to index pages indicated as excluded inthat file, search engines and/or other web services may simply ignorethe robots.txt file. However, using the systems, methods, devices,and/or techniques disclosed herein regarding cognitive languagetechniques the content that search engines and/or other web crawlersindex may be managed and/or limited. For example, the text articleprovided to the search engine and/or other web crawler may contain themisspelled word “breats,” which may be properly interpreted by human endusers but may not be indexed by automated search engines and/or otherweb crawlers. In some embodiments, the type of alteration may be basedon at least in part on the entity, device, service, and/or InternetProtocol address requesting the data. For example, the Google searchengine may receive the altered data and/or text while a medical searchengine may receive the unaltered data and/or text. In some embodiments,an image may be altered based on the requesting service. Similar to thealtered text data, a blacked out and/or censored image of a breast maybe sent to the search engine but the correct image may be sent to themedical search engine.

Example Digital Watermarking

In some embodiments, the systems, methods, devices, and/or techniquesregarding cognitive language processing disclosed herein may be used fordigital watermarking. In some embodiments, misspellings and/orsubstitutions of letters and/or symbols may be introduced to digitaldocuments as a form of a digital signature and/or unique identifier. Forexample, the intentional introduction of errors, such as “1” (the numberone) in place of the letter “l”, may be used to uniquely identify adocument that is copied. Additional changes may be made, such as addingspaces, changing single quotes to double quotes, changing a short dashto a long dash, changing semi-colons to colons or periods, substitutingabbreviations or contractions for their longer counterparts, changingcapitalization of words, changing spelling of words amenable to multiplespellings or regionally different spellings (i.e. color vs. colour),substitution of synonyms, substitution of a negating word and anantonym, the reverse of all of the foregoing, and/or any other changes.By making such changes, data may be placed into a document that is notapparent to a human end user. In some embodiments, the types of changesthat may be made do not trigger a spell check flag and/or alert and/oran automatic correction by optical character reading software and/orword processing software. In some embodiments, additional changes may bemade to the document unrelated to the one or more unique identifierssuch that a plurality of copies of the document cannot be easilycompared in order to identify the digital watermark.

In some embodiments, digital watermarks may be embedded in a documentand/or stored in a database to indicate one or more end users and/orpersons that have been given permissions to access the document. Forexample, if a scientific article hosted on a web page and/or website wastracked according to one or more of these mechanisms, the identity ofthe subscriber, the IP address used for access, and/or other informationmay be entered into a database together with an entry indicating thewatermarking done to the document associated with that information.

Implementation Mechanisms

The various computing device(s) discussed herein, such as the CAPTCHAsystem 100 of FIG. 1, are generally controlled and coordinated byoperating system software, such as, but not limited to, iOS, Android,Chrome OS, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, WindowsServer, Windows CE, Unix, Linux, SunOS, Solaris, Macintosh OS X,VxWorks, or other compatible operating systems. In other embodiments,the computing devices may be controlled by a proprietary operatingsystem. Conventional operating systems control and schedule computerprocesses for execution, perform memory management, provide file system,networking, I/O services, and provide a user interface functionality,such as a graphical user interface (“GUI”), among other things. TheCAPTCHA system 100 may be hosted and/or executed on one or morecomputing devices with one or more hardware processors and with any ofthe previously mentioned operating system software.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram that illustrates example components of theCAPTCHA system 100. While FIG. 6 refers to the CAPTCHA system 100, anyof the other computing devices discussed herein may have some or all ofthe same or similar components.

The CAPTCHA system 100 may execute software, e.g., standalone softwareapplications, applications within browsers, network applications, etc.,whether by the particular application, the operating system, orotherwise. Any of the systems discussed herein may be performed by theCAPTCHA system 100 and/or a similar computing system having some or allof the components discussed with reference to FIG. 5.

The CAPTCHA system 100 includes a bus 602 or other communicationmechanism for communicating information, and a hardware processor, ormultiple processors, 604 coupled with bus 602 for processinginformation. Hardware processor(s) 604 may be, for example, one or moregeneral purpose microprocessors.

The CAPTCHA system 100 also includes a main memory 606, such as a randomaccess memory (RAM), cache and/or other dynamic storage devices, coupledto bus 602 for storing information and instructions to be executed byprocessor(s) 604. Main memory 606 also may be used for storing temporaryvariables or other intermediate information during execution ofinstructions to be executed by processor(s) 604. Such instructions, whenstored in storage media accessible to processor(s) 604, render theCAPTCHA system 100 into a special-purpose machine that is customized toperform the operations specified in the instructions. Such instructions,as executed by hardware processors, may implement the methods andsystems described herein for sharing security information.

The CAPTCHA system 100 further includes a read only memory (ROM) 608 orother static storage device coupled to bus 602 for storing staticinformation and instructions for processor(s) 604. A storage device 610,such as a magnetic disk, optical disk, or USB thumb drive (Flash drive),etc., is provided and coupled to bus 602 for storing information andinstructions. The CAPTCHA storage device 106 FIG. 1 may be stored on themain memory 606 and/or the storage device 610.

In some embodiments, the CAPTCHA storage device 106 of FIG. 1 is a filesystem, relational database such as, but not limited to, MySql, Oracle,Sybase, or DB2, and/or a distributed in memory caching system such as,but not limited to, Memcache, Memcached, or Java Caching System.

The CAPTCHA system 100 may be coupled via bus 602 to a display 612, suchas a cathode ray tube (CRT) or LCD display or touch screen, fordisplaying information to a computer user. An input device 614 iscoupled to bus 602 for communicating information and command selectionsto processor 604. One type of input device 614 is a keyboard includingalphanumeric and other keys. Another type of input device 614 is a touchscreen. Another type of user input device is cursor control 616, such asa mouse, a trackball, a touch screen, or cursor direction keys forcommunicating direction information and command selections to processor604 and for controlling cursor movement on display 612. This inputdevice may have two degrees of freedom in two axes, a first axis (e.g.,x) and a second axis (e.g., y), that allows the device to specifypositions in a plane. In some embodiments, the same directioninformation and command selections as cursor control may be implementedvia receiving touches on a touch screen without a cursor.

The CAPTCHA system 100 may include a user interface unit to implement aGUI, for example, FIGS. 2, 3, 4, and/or 5, which may be stored in a massstorage device as executable software codes that are executed by thecomputing device(s). This and other units may include, by way ofexample, components, such as software components, object-orientedsoftware components, class components and task components, processes,functions, attributes, procedures, subroutines, segments of programcode, drivers, firmware, microcode, circuitry, data, databases, datastructures, tables, arrays, and variables.

The CAPTCHA system 100 and/or the CAPTCHA plugin 114 of FIG. 1 may beconfigured to be compatible with web browsers such as, but not limitedto, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and/or Chrome.

In general, the word “instructions,” as used herein, refers to logicembodied in hardware or firmware, or to a collection of software units,possibly having entry and exit points, written in a programminglanguage, such as, but not limited to, Java, Lua, C, C++, or C#. Asoftware unit may be compiled and linked into an executable program,installed in a dynamic link library, or may be written in an interpretedprogramming language such as, but not limited to, BASIC, Perl, orPython. Certain web programming methods may be used such as AJAX. Itwill be appreciated that software units may be callable from other unitsor from themselves, and/or may be invoked in response to detected eventsor interrupts. Software units configured for execution on computingdevices by their hardware processor(s) may be provided on a computerreadable medium, such as a compact disc, digital video disc, flashdrive, magnetic disc, or any other tangible medium, or as a digitaldownload (and may be originally stored in a compressed or installableformat that requires installation, decompression or decryption prior toexecution). Such software code may be stored, partially or fully, on amemory device of the executing computing device, for execution by thecomputing device. Software instructions may be embedded in firmware,such as an EPROM. It will be further appreciated that hardware modulesmay be comprised of connected logic units, such as gates and flip-flops,and/or may be comprised of programmable units, such as programmable gatearrays or processors. Generally, the instructions described herein referto logical modules that may be combined with other modules or dividedinto sub-modules despite their physical organization or storage.

The CAPTCHA system 100, or components of it, such as the CAPTCHAgenerator 104 and/or the human validator of FIG. 1 and/or FIG. 6, may beprogrammed, via executable code instructions, in a programming language.

The term “non-transitory media,” and similar terms, as used hereinrefers to any media that store data and/or instructions that cause amachine to operate in a specific fashion. Such non-transitory media maycomprise non-volatile media and/or volatile media. Non-volatile mediaincludes, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device610. Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory 606.Common forms of non-transitory media include, for example, a floppydisk, a flexible disk, hard disk, solid state drive, magnetic tape, orany other magnetic data storage medium, a CD-ROM, any other optical datastorage medium, any physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, aPROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, NVRAM, any other memory chip orcartridge, and networked versions of the same.

Non-transitory media is distinct from but may be used in conjunctionwith transmission media. Transmission media participates in transferringinformation between nontransitory media. For example, transmission mediaincludes coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, including thewires that comprise bus 602. Transmission media can also take the formof acoustic or light waves, such as those generated during radio-waveand infra-red data communications.

Various forms of media may be involved in carrying one or more sequencesof one or more instructions to processor(s) 604 for execution. Forexample, the instructions may initially be carried on a magnetic disk orsolid state drive of a remote computer. The remote computer may load theinstructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over atelephone or cable line using a modem. A modem local to the CAPTCHAsystem 100 may receive the data on the telephone or cable line and usean infra-red transmitter to convert the data to an infra-red signal. Aninfra-red detector can receive the data carried in the infra-red signaland appropriate circuitry can place the data on bus 602. Bus 602 carriesthe data to main memory 606, from which the processor(s) 604 retrievesand executes the instructions. The instructions received by main memory606 may retrieve and execute the instructions. The instructions receivedby main memory 606 may optionally be stored on storage device 610 eitherbefore or after execution by processor(s) 604.

The CAPTCHA system 100 also includes a communication interface 618coupled to bus 602. Communication interface 618 provides a two-way datacommunication coupling to a network link 620 that is connected to alocal network 622. For example, communication interface 618 may be anintegrated services digital network (ISDN) card, cable modem, satellitemodem, or a modem to provide a data communication connection to acorresponding type of telephone line. As another example, communicationinterface 618 may be a local area network (LAN) card to provide a datacommunication connection to a compatible LAN (or WAN component to becommunicated with a WAN). Wireless links may also be implemented. In anysuch implementation, communication interface 618 sends and receiveselectrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital datastreams representing various types of information.

Network link 620 typically provides data communication through one ormore networks to other data devices. For example, network link 620 mayprovide a connection through local network 622 to a host computer 624 orto data equipment operated by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 626.ISP 626 in turn provides data communication services through the worldwide packet data communication network now commonly referred to as the“Internet” 628. Local network 622 and Internet 628 both use electrical,electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams. Thesignals through the various networks and the signals on network link 620and through communication interface 618, which carry the digital data toand from the CAPTCHA system 100, are example forms of transmissionmedia.

A network, such as the network 160 of FIG. 1, may comprise, but is notlimited to, one or more local area networks, wide area network, wirelesslocal area network, wireless wide area network, the Internet, or anycombination thereof.

In some embodiments, there may be some variations of communication. Forexample, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) may be used forcommunication through the network 160, which may correspond to theInternet and/or any combination of networks. For example, the websiterequest 112, CAPTCHA plugin 114, CAPTCHA request and/or data 116, userinteraction data 118, and/or a validation request and/or response 120 ofFIG. 1 may be sent through the network 160 through HTTP requests and/orresponses. In some embodiments, the CAPTCHA environment 190 may notcomprise a third party web server 110 of FIG. 1. For example, the usercomputing device 102 of FIG. 1 may communicate with the CAPTCHA system110 without the third party web server 110 as an intermediary. In someembodiments, the CAPTCHA system may be used without the use of theInternet. The CAPTCHA system may communicate directly with the usercomputing device 102 without the use of the Internet. For example, therequest 112 may not be a website request but rather a CAPTCHA pluginrequest.

The CAPTCHA system 100 can send messages and receive data, includingprogram code, through the network(s), network link 620 and communicationinterface 618. In the Internet example, a server 630 might transmit arequested code for an application program through Internet 628, ISP 626,local network 622 and communication interface 618.

The received code may be executed by processor(s) 604 as it is received,and/or stored in storage device 510, or other non-volatile storage forlater execution.

Each of the processes, methods, and algorithms described in thepreceding sections may be embodied in, and fully or partially automatedby, code instructions executed by one or more computer systems orcomputer processors comprising computer hardware. The processes andalgorithms may be implemented partially or wholly inapplication-specific circuitry.

The vanous features and processes described above may be usedindependently of one another, or may be combined in various ways. Allpossible combinations and subcombinations are intended to fall withinthe scope of this disclosure. In addition, certain method or processblocks may be omitted in some implementations. The methods and processesdescribed herein are also not limited to any particular sequence, andthe blocks or states relating thereto can be performed in othersequences that are appropriate. For example, described blocks or statesmay be performed in an order other than that specifically disclosed, ormultiple blocks or states may be combined in a single block or state.The example blocks or states may be performed in serial, in parallel, orin some other manner. Blocks or states may be added to or removed fromthe disclosed example embodiments. The example systems and componentsdescribed herein may be configured differently than described. Forexample, elements may be added to, removed from, or rearranged comparedto the disclosed example embodiments.

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Any process descriptions, elements, or blocks in the flow diagramsdescribed herein and/or depicted in the attached figures should beunderstood as potentially representing units, segments, or portions ofcode which include one or more executable instructions for implementingspecific logical functions or steps in the process. Alternateimplementations are included within the scope of the embodimentsdescribed herein in which elements or functions may be deleted, executedout of order from that shown or discussed, including substantiallyconcurrently or in reverse order, depending on the functionalityinvolved, as would be understood by those skilled in the art.

It should be emphasized that many variations and modifications may bemade to the above-described embodiments, the elements of which are to beunderstood as being among other acceptable examples. All suchmodifications and variations are intended to be included herein withinthe scope of this disclosure. The foregoing description details certainembodiments of the invention. It will be appreciated, however, that nomatter how detailed the foregoing appears in text, the invention can bepracticed in many ways. As is also stated above, it should be noted thatthe use of particular terminology when describing certain features oraspects of the invention should not be taken to imply that theterminology is being re-defined herein to be restricted to including anyspecific characteristics of the features or aspects of the inventionwith which that terminology is associated. The scope of the inventionshould therefore be construed in accordance with the appended claims andany equivalents thereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer system configured to validatehomophone-like CAPTCHAs, the computer system comprising: one or morehardware processors programmed, via executable code instructions, toimplement: a CAPTCHA generator module configured to: determine a firstset of one or more words representing sounds that, when perceivedtogether, creates a sequence of sounds sufficiently similar to a secondset of one or more words such that if the first set and the second setwere considered a single word, they would form a homophone; and generatea CAPTCHA user interface depicting: a phrase of words including thefirst set, wherein the first set is configured for human perception asbeing a homophone for the second set, and at least two optionsassociated with respective two or more meanings for the first set,wherein at least one of the options is associated with a particularmeaning of the second set and at least one of the options is associatedwith an incorrect meaning of the second set; a human validator moduleconfigured to: receive a selection of at least one of the optionsassociated with the CAPTCHA user interface; determine whether theselection is associated with the particular meaning of the second set;generate an indication of whether the selection was provided by a humanbased on said determination; and transmit the generated indication. 2.The computer system of claim 1, wherein the first set is accompanied byat least one additional word so that the first set and the at least oneadditional word together form a phrase that makes determination of ameaning of first set easier to determine.
 3. The computer system ofclaim 1, wherein the first set is one word, and the second set is two ormore words.
 4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the first set istwo or more words, and the second set is one word.
 5. The computersystem of claim 1, wherein the first set and the second set are each twoor more words.
 6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the first setand the second set are each one word.
 7. A computer system configured tovalidate homophone-like CAPTCHAs, the computer system comprising: one ormore hardware processors programmed, via executable code instructions,to implement: a CAPTCHA generator module configured to: determine afirst set of one or more words representing sounds that, when perceivedtogether, creates a sequence of sounds sufficiently similar to a secondset of one or more words such that if the first set and second set wereconsidered a single word, they would form a homophone (a “homophone”);and generate a CAPTCHA user interface depicting: a phrase of wordsincluding the first set, wherein the first set is configured for humanperception as being a homophone for the second set, and an input boxallowing a user to input one or more words; a human validator moduleconfigured to: receive user input from the input box in the CAPTCHA userinterface; determine whether the user input correctly identifies thesecond set; generate an indication of whether a correct input wasprovided by a human based on said determination; and transmit thegenerated indication.
 8. The computer system of claim 7, wherein theuser input is determined to be the correct input if it is substantiallysimilar to the second set.
 9. The computer system of claim 7, whereinthe first set includes names.
 10. The computer system of claim 7,wherein the first set is not substantially grammatically correct.
 11. Acomputer system configured to validate homophone-like CAPTCHAs, thecomputer system comprising: one or more hardware processors programmed,via executable code instructions, to implement: a CAPTCHA generatormodule configured to: determine a first set of one or more wordsrepresenting sounds that, when perceived together, creates a set ofsounds sufficiently similar to a second set of one or more words suchthat if the first set and the second set were considered a single word,they would form a homophone (a “homophone”); and generate a CAPTCHA userinterface depicting: a phrase of words including the first set, whereinthe first set is configured for human perception as being a homophonefor the second set, and at least two options the user may select from,wherein only one option is the second set; a human validator moduleconfigured to: receive the user selection from the CAPTCHA userinterface; determine whether the user selection correctly identifies thesecond set; generate an indication of whether a correct selection wasprovided by a human based on said determination; and transmit thegenerated indication.
 12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein thefirst set is not substantially grammatically correct.
 13. The computersystem of claim 11, wherein the first set includes names.
 14. Thecomputer system of claim 11, wherein a meaning of the phrase of wordscomprising the first set cannot be determined.
 15. The computer systemof claim 11, wherein at least two of the options are homophones to thefirst set.
 16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein of the optionsthat are homophones to the first set, only one is substantiallygrammatically correct.
 17. The computer system of claim 11, wherein thefirst set is one word, and the second set is two or more words.
 18. Thecomputer system of claim 11, wherein the first set is two or more words,and the second set is one word.
 19. The computer system of claim 11,wherein the first set and the second set are each two or more words. 20.The computer system of claim 11, wherein the first set and the secondset are each one word.